INDIAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Volume 5

Number 1

INDIAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

welcomes original inter-disciplinary contributions from a

human development perspective on developing countries

>

promotes fresh debates on concepts and measurement

of human development

>

explores the inter-connections between policy

interventions and impacts on the lives of people

>

includes a comparative analysis of development policies

that enhance people's freedoms

>

offers human development insights into policy analysis

and evaluation

The Journal includes scholarly essays and short comments, lectures

and orations, reflections and perspectives, book reviews,
information on events and statistics relating to human
development. Expressions of all shades and opinions are welcome.

Subscription Rates

Volume 5
Number 1

I SSN 0 9 7 3 - 7 0 3 0

9 770973 703000

January-June 2011

Institute for Human Development

NIDM Building, IIPA Campus, IP Estate
New Delhi-110 002
Phones: +91-11-2335 8166/ 2332 1610
Fax: +91-11-2376 5410
Email: ijhd@ihdindia.org
Website: www.ihdindia.org

January-June 2011

January-June 2011

The Indian Journal of Human Development:

>

Volume 5 Number 1

Institute for
Human
Development

INDIAN JOURNAL OF
H U M A N
DEVELOPMENT

Madhusudan Ghosh Regional Disparities in Education,

Health and Human Development in India
Jandhyala B.G. Tilak What Matters for
Outcomes in Elementary Education in India?
Pravat Kumar Kuri and Arindam Laha Financial Inclusion
and Human Development in India: An Inter-State Analysis
Symposium on
THE IDEA OF JUSTICE
Keith Dowding What Is the Idea of Justice?

INDIAN

Roberto Alejandro Towards a Hermeneutics of Justice:

Reflections on Amartya Sen's Philosophy
Sebastiano Maffettone Sen's Idea of
Justice versus Rawls' Theory of Justice
James P. Sterba What Sen Should Have Said to Rawls

JOURNAL

Charles W. Mills Re-Theorizing Justice: Some Comments

on Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice
Valerian Rodrigues Justice as the Lens: Interrogating
Rawls through Sen and Ambedkar

Aakash Singh Rathore The Romance of Global Justice?

Sen's Deparochialization and the Quandary of Dalit Marxism

OF

HUMAN

Philip Pettit A Question for Sen

about Democracy and Justice
Christian Schemmel Sen, Rawlsand Sisyphus
Evan Riley Against Sen Against Rawls on Justice
O.A. Oyeshile Sen's Realization-Focused
Notion of Justice and the Burden of
Democratic Governance in African Societies
PERSPECTIVE
Udaya S. Mishra On Adjusting the Survivorship
Dimension in the Human Development Index
RESPONSE
M.H. Suryanarayana New Estimates of Poverty in India: A
Critique of the 'Tendulkar Committee Report'A Response

DEVELOPMENT

BOOK REVIEWS

Indian Journal of Human Development, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2011

Sen, Rawlsand Sisyphus

Christian Schemmel*

In The Idea of Justice, Sen argues, against the social contract tradition and Rawls in particular, that
political theory should change focus from the question What is a just society? to the question
How can the justice of the present state of affairs be improved?. His main objections are that
Rawlsian theory is incapable of establishing unanimous agreement on one set of principles of
justice, and that such agreement is neither necessary nor sufficient for arriving at an agreement
on proposals for improving the justice of current states of affairs. This paper defends Rawlsian
theory. It argues that Sens objections have force only if his alternative, comparative methodology
is able to circumvent fundamental disagreement, and shows, by means of an internal argument,
that it is not able to do so. The upshot of the paper is that the search for agreement on principles
of justice in political theory may be, to some extent, like the task of Sisyphus, who has to roll a
rock up a hill, for all eternity, only to see it roll down again but that this is not a reason for
particular concern. It concludes with some suggestions as to how Rawls-inspired political theory
can nevertheless aim at making proposals of more immediate political relevance.

Keywords: The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen, Transcendental vs. Comparative justice

INTRODUCTION
Over the last twenty years, unrest has grown in contemporary political theory about
its perceived lack of connection to the political issues that determine our contemporary
reality. The spectacular success of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice has changed the
discipline. But the turn to analytical political theory of the Rawlsian kind has had
its costs; a high degree of abstraction, and an emphasis on conceptual precision and
rigour at the expense of closeness to the political issues of the day are among these.
This has given rise to many criticisms of Rawlsian political theory, and has found
expression, inter alia, in a debate about ideal vs. non-ideal theory, 1 and a renewed
interest in realist political theory. 2
Now, Amartya Sen has added his powerful voice to the core of those criticizing the
distance of Rawlsian political theory to issues of real world justice. In The Idea of Justice3,
Sen criticizes the social contract tradition, and Rawls's work, in particular. He argues
that political theory should change focus, from the basic question of the social contract
tradition, What is a just society?, to the question, How can the justice of the present
state of affairs be improved? This call looks timely and well-motivated. However,
this paper argues that, despite Sens claims to the contrary, political theory of the
Rawlsian kind is still indispensable. It proceeds as follows. Section 1 identifies Sens
* Research Fellow, Centre for Advanced Studies Justitia AmplificataRethinking Justice, University of
Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany. Email: schemmel@soz.uni-frankfurt.de

198 Indian Journal of Human Development

most fundamental objections to Rawls' conception of justice as fairness: that political

theory of the Rawlsian kind does not succeed in establishing unanimous agreement
on one set of principles as the uniquely right ones, and that such agreement is neither
necessary nor sufficient for arriving at an agreement on how to improve the justice of
current states of affairs. Section 2 assesses these objections, and argues that they have
force only if Sens alternative comparative methodology for assessing questions of
justice is able to circumvent fundamental disagreement. Section 3 shows, by means of
an internal argument, that it is not able to do so. The upshot of the argument is that the
search for agreement on the right principles of justice in political theory may hence be,
to some extent, like the task of the mythological figure Sisyphus, who has to roll a rock
up a hill, for all eternity, only to see it roll down againbut that this is not a reason for
particular concern. The conclusion offers some suggestions as to how political theory
of the Rawlsian kind can nevertheless aim at making proposals of more immediate
political relevance.
TRANSCENDENTAL INSTITUTIONALISM VS.
REALIZATION-FOCUSED COMPARISON
Sen initiates his critique of Rawls, and his development of an alternative account of
how justice ought to be theorized, by proposing a fundamental division of modern
political theory into two camps: in the one corner, we find the social contract tradition,
identified with Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel
Kant (p. 6) and, in contemporary political theory, John Rawls. The basic question that
this tradition seeks to answer is what characterizes a just society. Sen labels this approach
transcendental institutionalism (henceforth: TI), because, in his view, it focuses on
identifying perfect justice, that is, a unique set of principles which constitute justice
(transcendentalism); and, in doing so, it concentrates on the question as to which
institutional arrangements would make for such a perfectly just society (pp. 5f). In the
other corner, we find an approach which Sen labels realization-focused comparison
(henceforth: RFC). Its championsamong whom Sen names Adam Smith, the Marquis
de Condorcet, Jeremy Bentham, and Karl Marxwere, according to him, mainly
interested in comparisons of societies that already existed or could feasibly emerge.
Theorists of this bent take as their theoretical starting point, not the question as to
what would constitute the just society, but the question as to which changes in social
states of affairs would constitute improvements in justice, or at least the removal
of manifest injustice (all quotes from p. 7). Sen identifies social choice theorythe
aggregation and ranking of collective preferences for/judgments about different
social alternativesas the main contemporary heir of this tradition.
Sen argues that RFC should replace TI. He does not criticize TI in the abstract, and
this paper will not discuss whether his categorization of the thinkers named above
is always correct.4 His attack is centred on Rawls's theory of (social) justice, that is,
justice as fairness. Since he raises a whole battery of different objections to Rawls,
it is important to single out those which, if successful, are most able to motivate the
paradigm shift in political theory that the Idea of Justice calls for.

Sen, Rawlsand Sisyphus 199

Sens objections largely fall into three groups: a) those concerned with Rawls'
attempts to identify a unique set of principles of justice, justice as fairness (Chapter 2); b)
those concerned with Rawls' special focus on institutions as the agents that implement,
or constitute, social justice (Chapter 3); c), those concerned with Rawls' focus on
principles of justice for a closed society, which is said to preclude adequate concern for
outsiders (Chapter 6). Objections of type c) are well known from discussions of global
justice over the last thirty years. Objections of type b) raise many different points, such
as that a focus on institutions is in danger of both undervaluing the importance of
social realizations (p. 19) as the target of justice, and of peoples actual behaviour
(pp. 67ff) as a determinant of how and whether justice can be reached. Yet, it is
objections of type a) that are the most fundamental ones, not only to Rawls's theory in
particular, but to analytical political theory of justice of the Rawlsian kind, in general,
and, accordingly, this paper focuses on these objections.
As is well known, Rawls puts forward his conception of justice as fairness as the
best contender for principles of social justice; and, for Rawlsian theory, in order to
count as a good contender, a conception of justice has to be reasonably definite, and
contain, in particular, rules for resolving possible conflicts between different aspects
of justice. Accordingly, justice as fairness consists of a lexically ordered structure of
three principles of justice: a principle of equal basic liberties, which is lexically prior to
a principle of fair equality of opportunity, requiring the removal of socially created
obstacles to equality of opportunity, which is, in turn, lexically prior to the difference
principle, which requires that all differences in income and wealth must be to the
maximum advantage of the worst-off.5
Objections of type a) question whether it is actually sensible to try to identify
a unique set of principles in the first place. Sens critique of Rawls on this point is
straightforward: there is, he claims, simply no reason to suppose that informed,
impartial, open discussions of matters of justicethe possibility and necessity of
which Sen ardently defends against critics of the Enlightenment focus on reason
and objectivity (Chapters 1 and 5) will lead to general, unanimous adoption of a
set of principles of justice as the uniquely right one.6 Instead, it is more reasonable
to suppose that there will always be a plurality of competing principles surviving
reasonable scrutiny (p. 57). Furthermore, he argues that agreement on principles is
neither necessary nor sufficient for individuating proposals for improvements in
justice on which supporters of different principles can agree. Accordingly, the next
section will examine these objections in turn.
SENS OBJECTIONS TO RAWLS: DISAGREEMENT AND REDUNDANCY
The Critique of Lack of Agreement on Fundamental Principles
Sen explains the difficulty of agreeing on a unique set of principles with the help of the
following flute example:
At the heart of the particular problem of a unique impartial resolution of the
perfectly just society is the possible sustainability of plural and competing reasons for

200 Indian Journal of Human Development

justice, all of which have claims to impartiality and which nevertheless differ from
and rival each other. Let me illustrate the problem with an example in which
you have to decide which of three children Anne, Bob, and Carla should get a
flute about which they are quarrelling. Anne claims the flute on the ground that she
is the only one of the three who knows how to play it []. In an alternative scenario,
it is Bob who [] defends his case for having the flute by pointing out that he is
the only one among the three who is so poor that he has no toys of his own. [] In
another alternative scenario, it is Carla who [] points out that she has been working
diligently for many months to make the flute with her own labour [](pp. 12f.).
As Sen rightly points out, this is a case where adherents of different theories of
justice, such as utilitarians, or economic egalitarians, or no-nonsense libertarians
(ibid.), would recommend different solutions on the basis of their ultimate principles.
The economic egalitarian would champion Bobs case and the libertarian Carlas. The
utilitarian, against that, would emphasize the fulfilment and pleasure that Anne gets
from playing the flute, while at the same time showing some sensitivity to considerations
of inequality/poverty (Bob) and libertarian self-ownership (Carla). She would,
however, not concede these considerations any ultimate standing, but would regard
them only as additional factors to be taken into account in a resolution of the conflict
that appeals to only one fundamental principle: that of utility maximization. Sens
take-away lesson from this case is: that it is not easy to brush aside as foundationless
any of the claims based respectively on the pursuit of human fulfilment, or removal
of poverty, or entitlement to enjoy the product of ones own labour. The different
resolutions all have serious arguments in support of them, and we may not be able to
identify without some arbitrariness, any of the alternative arguments as being the one
that must invariably prevail (p. 14).
Now, adherents of TI may retort that, strictly speaking, Sens is not a general
argument, but merely a general claim about the reach of objective reason regarding
the identifiability of uniquely right principles of justice. However, it would be
unfair to require Sen to deliver a knock-down argument for such a general claim.
Illustrating it with the help of a particular example certainly goes some way, and
noting the extent of disagreement over principles of justice also within the scholarly
community should lend further support to it: we may note that Rawls' conception
of justice mentioned in the previous section has been the subject of contention and
discussion within the community of political theorists over the last forty years or
so, and continues to be so; and that there seems to be no other contender in sight
that could reasonably hope to attract such unanimous agreement. If it is legitimate
to assume that political philosophers are in general reasonable people, then this
should bolster Sens case. Even if we are not prepared to concede once and for all
that reason, objectivity and impartiality do not settle the question, we should at least
concede its difficulty. Accordingly, there is a good prima facie case for looking out for
a different methodology that would help us to settle at least some conflicts of justice
here and now: this is what RFC promises.

Sen, Rawlsand Sisyphus 201

The Redundancy Critique

Sen continues to prepare the case for RFC by adducing another argument against TI:
the redundancy charge, according to which TI is neither necessary nor sufficient for
making comparative judgments of justice. The necessity-charge needs to be tackled
first, since, if successful, it would be the stronger one. Unfortunately, Sen does not
deliver any argument here, but only a general claim, supported by two analogies.
The general claim is that it is not at all obvious why in making the judgment that
some social arrangement X is better than alternative arrangement Y, we have to invoke
the identification of that some quite different alternative, say Z, is the very best (or
absolutely right) social arrangement (p. 101).
The two analogies are:
1. In arguing for a Van Gogh over a Picasso we do not need to get steamed up about
identifying the most perfect picture in the world, which would beat the Van Goghs
and the Picassos and all other paintings in the world (ibid.).
2. [W]e may indeed be willing to accept, with great certainty, that Mount Everest is
the tallest mountain in the world [], but that understanding is neither needed,
nor particularly helpful in comparing the peak heights of say, Mount Kilimanjaro
and Mount McKinley (p. 102).
Hence, Sen concludes that [t]here would be something deeply odd in a general
belief that a comparison of any two alternatives cannot be sensibly made without a
prior identification of a supreme alternative. There is no analytical connection there at
all(ibid.).
Now, the problem with the first analogy is that, while most people would accept
that Sen is right about paintings, the crucial claim that aesthetics and theories of
justice are relevantly similar just begs the question. Indeed, Sen retracts it right away,
noting that the analogy with aesthetics is problematic since a person might not
even have any idea of a perfect picture, in the way that the idea of the just society
has appeared to many to be clearly identifiable, within transcendental theories of
justice (p. 100).7 However, the second analogy is at least as problematic: we have
no difficulty in comparing heights, because height can be measured with the help of
units of measurement like the metre which are purely conventional, agreement on
which, therefore, raises no difficulties. Theorists of the Rawlsian bent believe that the
individuation of general principles of justice is the first task for theories of justice,
and that tackling concrete cases of proposed justice improvement has to be logically
secondary, precisely because agreement on general criteria is not conventional, but
highly morally charged. This belief is unchallenged by Sens analogies.
What about Sens second, weaker criticism that TI principles of justice are not
sufficient for comparative justice assessment? Sen argues that the just society that
TI envisages does not give us rankings of departures from justness in terms of
comparative distances from perfection (p. 98), because departures from justice may
occur in different dimensions. For example, in the case of justice as fairness, even

202 Indian Journal of Human Development

though we know that the principle of equal basic liberties is prior to the principle of
equality of opportunity, the conception does not tell us which violations of equal basic
liberties are worse than others (ibid.). Rawlsians may quibble with this, and argue
that Rawls's comments on the respective importance of different liberties give some
indication here (Rawls, 1999a, Chapter 4); yet the basic point that justice as fairness
does not give us a complete ranking of injustices, which is sufficient for the insufficiency
charge to go through, is correct. However, it is also not particularly controversial. No
Rawlsian claims that agreement on justice as fairness gives us a perfect blueprint
for reform towards perfection from where we are now, wherever that may be. But
Rawlsians would point out that Rawls' principles do at least give some guidance: for
example, they tell us that, under generally favourable institutional circumstances,
equality of basic liberties may not be sacrificed for distributional gains;8 and they can
also plausibly argue that the lexical order of principles for a just society implies that
the fulfilment of these principles in the future must not be achieved through violations
of the principles here and now, for example, by denying basic liberties to all those who
oppose Rawlsian justice, thus trying to facilitate political change towards it.9
Thus, unlike the non-necessity charge, Sens insufficiency charge is successful;
but this is not as yet a reason to abandon TI. For this, there would have to be a better
alternative, which yields practically implementable proposals for improvements in
justice here and now even in the face of disagreement about fundamental principles.10
Is RFC up to the job? The next section will argue that it is not.
REALIZATION-FOCUSED COMPARISON TESTED
An Outline of RFC
As mentioned in Section 1, RFC aims at individuating improvement in justice with the
help of social choice theory-based aggregation of individual rankings of alternative
social scenarios and proposals for improvement, thus seeking to identify the proposals
on which there is collective partial agreement:
[P]ersistent incompleteness may be a hardy feature of judgments of social justice.
This can be problematic for the identification of a perfectly just society, and make
transcendental conclusions difficult to derive. And yet, such incompleteness would
not prevent making comparative judgments about justice in a great many cases
where there might be fair agreement on particular pair-wise rankingsabout how to
enhance justice and reduce injustice (p. 105).
The quality and acceptability of results of social choice aggregations hinges
crucially on the quality of the input, that is, individual beliefs about justice. If the
input consisted only of unspecified individual preferences for or against different
social states of affairs, it would not be clear why a ranking of them should give any
reason to accept the result. Accordingly, Sen is clear not only that the inputs have to be
individual judgments of justice that underlie constraints of impartiality and objectivity
(Chapters 1 and 5), but also that individuals have to have ample opportunity to test,
revise, and refine their judgments in open public deliberation and discussion with

Sen, Rawlsand Sisyphus 203

others (Chapters 15 and 16). Furthermore, he stresses that, for such orderings to be
sensible, they do not only have to be judgments of justice that aspire to be impartial and
objective, but have to share a common informational basis regarding improvements of
which features of individuals, or the world, they are about. Accordingly, he proposes
individual capabilities as this informational basis (p. 232).11
RFC thus understood is successful as an alternative methodology for theorizing
justice if it is able to generate proposals for justice reform on issues that are subject to
disagreement of the principle, thereby circumventing the problem that leads adherents
of TI to debates of principle. Unfortunately, Sen delivers no in-depth discussion of
any real cases where RFC is able to do so. To be sure, a full demonstration would
require actually doing an aggregation and ranking of the justice judgments of real
(and reasonable) people, and would hence involve a significant empirical component,
which may not fairly be expected in a book about the fundamentals of theorizing
justice. However, Sen does not even illustrate the case for RFC by discussing a stylized
example. He does mention a whole array of cases where agreement on improvement
in justice, or removal of manifest injustice, could be plausibly expected, such as
on the removal of illiteracy, torture, racism, female subjugation, [and] arbitrary
incarceration (p. 96). Yet, a supporter of TI can retort that these are cases where we
hardly need to do any political theory at all, precisely because all reasonable theories of
justice agree on their injustice.12 Indeed, this is what Sen himself seems to imply when
he calls cases such as these cases of manifest injustice (pp. 7, 259). Rawls, for example,
takes convictions such as that of the injustice of racial discrimination as provisional
fixed points, from which his inquiry of justice starts, in order to see whether, through
theoretical construction on the basis of these fixed points, we can arrive at secure
convictions of justice regarding other issues on which currently no certainty exists,
such as the correct distribution of wealth (Rawls, 1999a, p. 18).
RFC and the Flute Example
The superiority of RFC must, therefore, emerge in contested cases, where TI seems to
be able to offer no solution, such as Sens own flute example explained above. Since Sen
uses it to illustrate the problems of TI, it seems appropriate to examine whether RFC
is able to individuate at least one practical proposal that the utilitarian, the economic
egalitarian, and the libertarian could plausibly agree on regarding what is to happen
with the flute. Now, the problem is that it is hard to imagine what such a proposal
could be. Sharing the flute, for example, so that Anne, Bob, and Carla could take turns
in using it would not work: a utilitarian case for this proposal could possibly be made,
and the economic egalitarian might be expected to agree with it at least insofar as it
reduces Bobs poverty, and the inequality between him and the other two, to some
degree. But the libertarian would not agree with the proposal; forcing Carla to share
the flute with the others would, in her view, constitute a violation of Carlas right to
the products of her own labour. That Carla could still use the flute for one-third of the
time available would not placate her. Restricted use rights do not constitute adequate
compensation for the violation of that prior, more important right.

204 Indian Journal of Human Development

One may think that the fact that RFC does not seem to be able to offer a plausible
resolution of the flute case is not particularly telling, since it is merely contingent
on the particulars of the example: there is just one flute here, so that three different
fundamental principles for the allocation of resources are made to clash on just one
object. No wonder then that no solution appears on the horizon. This is trueSen
has designed the case that way. But the problem for RFC cuts deeper: note that the
disputants could not even agree on the subject of the debate at a sufficient degree
of depth in order for RFC to arrive at a plausible partial ranking. Sen claims that the
different justificatory arguments do not represent divergences about what constitutes
individual advantage, namely getting the flute (p. 15). But it is different aspects of
getting the flute that matter for each theory. Recall that Sen proposed assessment of
individual capabilities as the metric for the individual justice judgments that function
as input into RFCs aggregation and ranking procedure. To have a capability is to have
secure access to a set of functionings that individuals may take an interest in. Yet, in
the example, there is no agreement on what the respective functionings are, or, indeed,
on whether functionings matter at all. For the utilitarian and the economic egalitarian,
the relevant functionings are playing the flute, or simply playing with it in other ways.
But for the libertarian, it seems that functionings are simply irrelevant: it does not
matter whether Carla wants to play the flute, play with it, or not do anything with
it at all. Of course, it is conceptually possible to formulate the libertarian concern in
terms of capabilities. But a capability referring to the functioning of simply keeping
the flute, would be, in Nozicks terms, gimmicky (Nozick, 1974, p. 157n.): its only
purpose would be to conceal the substantive disagreement of principle that is at stake
here. For libertarians, it is not functionings that matter, but property rights; in this
case, to objects produced by oneself.
But am I not making too much of the dissent of the libertarian? Could one not object
that at least the utilitarian and the economic egalitarian have some common ground
here, and that the libertarians insistence on absolute property rights is unreasonable?
Perhaps it is. However, recall that Sen has decreed all theories of justice involved in
the example to be reasonable, and has used it as an argument against TI; so it is fair to
use it against RFC, as well. Sen cannot claim that continued public discussion of the
case among the three would eventually make the unreasonableness of libertarianism
emerge at the level of principle.13
Hence, the take-away lesson from this case is that, since in truly contested cases,
disagreements about what would constitute an improvement in justice often go
directly all the way down to disagreements of fundamental principle, the focus
of TI on these principles is warranted.14 TI ascends from disagreements in particular
cases to the formulation of higher principles in the hope that it is possible to either
a) discern areas on agreement on higher principles, which, in turn can be used to
relocate and render more tractable the particular disagreement as, for example, one
of different empirical assessment, or b) show the implausibility of one or more of the
principles involved, by considering the implications of their general applicationfor
example, by way of a reductio ad absurdum.15 In doing so, it must also specify what

Sen, Rawlsand Sisyphus 205

the concept of justice is that different proposed principles draw upon, because the
disagreements that such a procedure aims at eliminating need not always be firstorder disagreements about the normative content of said principles; they may also
be higher-order disagreements about the kind of problem that these are supposed to
solve. Rawls, for example, defines the problem of (social) justice as that of specifying
just ground rules for societal interaction and cooperation producing basic goods.
Libertarians do not agree; for them, justice requires respect for a set of fundamental
individual rights across all contexts, collective cooperation or not; and for utilitarians,
such questions of context will be of empirical importance for what, as a matter of fact,
maximizes utility, but do not enjoy any fundamental theoretical standing. So, is justice
fundamentally a matter of what individuals are entitled to get, independently of the
collective context that they find themselves in? Or is it a matter of how they treat each
other in specified collective contexts, like that of societal cooperation? Or are these two
different contexts of justice, each posing a different kind of problem to be solved, and
hence requiring a different theory?
Since questions such as these may re-emerge in cases of debate over what
constitutes a justice improvement here and now, even a proposed non-transcendental
methodology like RFC must have something more to say on them than Sen offers
in the Idea of Justice. For a book of this title, it contains very little analysis of what
justice actually is, and what normative problem it is supposed to solve. Sen proposes
to approach the question of the definition of justice through an analysis of fairness,
professing to follow Rawls. However, his definition of fairness only notes that it can
broadly be seen as a demand for impartiality (p. 54), and thus fails to answer the
question: impartiality in which context, with regard to which problem? Sen wants to
be maximally inclusive and pluralist on questions such as these. But, as seen, the flute
example gives reason to doubt that this strategy works. Furthermore, problems may
not only arise regarding different concepts and contexts of justice, but also regarding
the delineation of justice from other moral virtues, such as beneficence. For example, a
reformed libertarian perspective may hold that, while Carla is entitled to the flute as a
matter of justice, she nevertheless has a duty of humanity to give it to Bob.
Possible Rejoinders on the Part of RFC
Now, one might think about a version of RFC that deliberately overlooks these kinds
of disagreements on the concept of justice and its delineation from different moral
concerns in favour of seeking to identify agreement on what would constitute an
improvement of social states of affairs, whether that be in terms of justice or not. The
broad kind of impartiality that Sen draws on would then be the impartiality that morality
generally demands, not that of justice in particular. Hard-nosed consequentialists may
be sympathetic to such a proposal; however, I take it that Sen would not be.16 There is
a reason why the book is not entitled The Idea of Improving Social States of Affairs; Sen
does want to draw on the particular force that the concept of justice possesses in our
moral vocabulary, with the attached moral psychology of indignation in the face of
(perceived) injustice that it entails, as he makes clear in the very opening sentences of
the book (p. vii).

206 Indian Journal of Human Development

A different kind of rejoinder on the part of RFC has better chances of success: this
rejoinder admits that RFC has to be supplemented with a more fine-grained analysis
of what justice is and what the problems to which it applies are. But, it argues, such an
analysis need not go all the way down to trying to identify a unique set of principles of
justice. Once the philosophical groundwork of delineating justice is done, we can proceed
to identifying partial rankings of proposed justice improvements on the basis of the
plurality of principles of justice permitted by reason and objectivity. This may look like
a promising proposal. However, it overlooks the epistemological connection between
settling on the concept of justice and putting forward reasonably precise proposals for
principles of justice. It is by examining what principles a particular construal of justice
may lead to that we attain the position of being able to evaluate the basic construal
itself. Arguably, we are not in a position to agree what justice isgiving people what
they are due in terms of utility or capabilities, or treating them with respect, etc.and
in which context it operates, without having a reasonably precise idea as to what each
particular construal of justice may lead to, in practical terms. This requires working out
conceptions of justice and putting them to the test on contested issues. In Rawls's words,
[O]ne task of political philosophyits practical role, lets sayis to focus on deeply
disputed questions and to see whether, despite appearances, some underlying basis of
philosophical and moral agreement can be discovered. (Rawls, 2001, p. 2).
But wasnt the starting point of Sens critique that such agreement seems precisely
not to be forthcoming? This is correct; but, I argue, we are now in a position to see
that this is not a reason for particular concern. The political philosophers primary
task remains to try her best and seek such agreement, putting forward the principles
of justice that she regards as best justified while elucidating their connection with
both the general set-up of her theory and our considered convictions of justice. These
principles will then be subject to attack, and, given that we are discussing deeply
disputed questions, will probably not succeed in establishing general agreement. In
this respect, the task of the political philosopher is hence like that of the mythological
figure Sisyphus, who is eternally condemned to rolling a rock up a hill, before it rolls
down again and he has to start all over. This kind of procedure is justified if we may
have the reasonable hope that, in the long term, it will enable us to achieve at least
negative agreement about the kinds of proposals and principles that we should regard
as unreasonable. Apart from obvious cases such as those of undisguised partiality,
contradiction, etc., such agreement about unreasonableness cannot be discovered by
scrutinizing our notion of reason alone. Non-obvious unreasonableness emerges by
comparison to better alternatives.
To use Rawls' terms once more, the reasonable hope mentioned above must then be
that of establishing, through this constant work of making proposals and testing them,
a collective body of knowledge in political theory that will, over time, seep into the
general background culture (Rawls, 2007, pp. 3, 5), from where it may inform political
discussions of the kind that Sen rightly celebrates and demands. Therefore, this task is
worth pursuing only if there is reasonable hope that, even if all, or at least most, political
philosophers are like Sisyphus individually, the discipline, as such, is not.

Sen, Rawlsand Sisyphus 207

Is this a reasonable hope? Optimists argue that, for example, political theory
has contributed to establishing the unreasonableness of hierarchical societies based
on rigid notions of estate by developing positive proposals for principles that could
govern estate-less societies, and regard this as one of the main achievements of the
social contract tradition (think only of Rousseau). They claim that this would not
have been possible had political theory focused merely on proposals as to how to
remove the most egregious shortcomings of estate-based societies, in the hope of
securing short-term agreement on these. Pessimists about reason will disagree that
political theory can play a contributory role in such processes of long-term political
change. However, Sen, as seen above, is not a pessimist about reason. His claim is one
of optimism regarding the capacity of political theory to deliver reasoned agreement
on improvements in justice, and of pessimism regarding reasoned agreement on
principle. If the argument of this paper is correct, his insistence on this distinction
does not stand up to scrutiny.
To be sure, putting into practice this hope requires more than debating details of
principles of justice in highly specialized journals; as the number of political theorists and
their journals have grown over the last decades, specialization has tended to pay more
for academic careers, just like in other academic disciplines. This is an important point;
but it has little to do with the social contract tradition, and only incidentally with Rawls'
work. It is a point about the sociology and economics of contemporary academia.17
Hence, Sen has failed to show that political theory of the transcendental kind
should be given up in favour of a comparative approach. His disagreement-based
criticism of transcendental theory is correct. However, I have argued that the failure
of his proposed alternative shows that it is not much of a criticism, but rather simply
the condition of fundamental political theory: to be an individual Sisyphus in the hope
of collective progress.
CONCLUSION: FROM RAWLSIAN POLITICAL THEORY
TO POLITICAL PRACTICE?
If the argument of this paper is correct, Sens criticism of transcendental theory
and his own alternative proposal are not successful. However, this does not imply
that there are no ways in which theorists of justice of the Rawlsian bent can make
contributions that are more directly relevant to the present political state of affairs
than fundamental debates of principle often are. On the one hand, a methodology
akin to Sens proposed comparative approach may supplement theories of justice by
individuating proposals which, by commanding agreement, are either more feasible
than others, or more democratically legitimate, or both.18 On the other hand, the
distance between fundamental political theory of justice itself and the elaboration
of practical proposals may, in significant respects, be shorter than what the overspecialization of much contemporary political theory on fine-grained disagreement on
matters of principle suggests. In the previous section, it was argued that working out
the circumstances and background conditions for the operation of specific principles

208 Indian Journal of Human Development

of justice is necessary to make sense of fundamental disagreements about justice. At

the same time, such a kind of inquiry into the specific problems and circumstances
of justice can establish a connection with both empirical social science and political
practice that facilitates the elaboration of practical proposals.
The insight that theories of justice must rest on an analysis of the problem that they
are supposed to solve is stressed by the practice-dependent approach to justice, which
is gaining currency in the recent debate about justice (see James, 2005; Sangiovanni,
2008). Such an approach couples the analysis and interpretation of specific problems of
justice, such as those raised by interaction and cooperation within domestic societies, by
the absolute deprivation faced by a great part of the worlds population, or by specific
international institutions and actors, like the World Trade Organization (WTO), with the
development of range-restricted principles of justice, which claim to be valid only within
the specified context.19 Given its inherent range restriction and reference to a particular
problem, it is easier for such an approach to establish connections with both empirical
social science and political practice. Thomas Pogges recent work on global justice may
serve as an example here: Pogge seeks to develop proposals for political reform based
not only on their normative desirability, but also on an analysis of how they may be
incentive-compatible from the point of view of the presently powerful actors.20
To be sure, such proposals will then be subject not only to normative disagreement
of principle, but also to additional disagreements about the correctness of the
specification of the problem, and about the feasibility of the proposed improvement as
well. Thus, there is no escaping Sisyphus, task. But the point that this paper has sought
to make holds here, as wellthis is not a reason not to try.
NOTES
1.
2.
3.
4.

5.
6.

For some prominent contributions to this debate, see Mills, 2005; Farrelly, 2007; Swift and
Robeyns, 2008; Valentini, 2009; Simmons, 2010.
See, for example, Geuss, 2008.
Henceforth, references in this paper refer to The Idea of Justice unless marked otherwise.
For example: to which extent it is adequate to regard Hobbes as first and foremost a theorist of
justice is an open question. Similarly, to claim that he is less interested in the actual behaviour
of people than in institutions seems questionable, when his whole account of the necessity of
institutions of political authority is based on an analysis of how people behave under conditions
of their absence. Another example: the revolutionary aspirations of Marxist communism can
hardly be said to aim merely at improving the justice of society, or at removing manifest
injustice.
For Rawls' final statement of the principles and the case for them, see Rawls, 2001, Parts II and
III.
Sen recognizes that, in Political Liberalism (Rawls 1996), Rawls shifts the focus from the justification
of these principles to the more general one of how public reason can identify at least a family of
reasonable conceptions of justice, of which he regards justice as fairness as the best justified
member. But he claims that Rawls admission of reasonable pluralism is incoherent he should
have stuck to reasonable pluralism, and abandoned justice as fairness (p. 58). However, Rawls
actually argues that all members of this family agree on equal liberties and their priority, and
on a version of equality of opportunity, and merely come apart on the question of whether

Sen, Rawlsand Sisyphus 209

7.

8.

9.
10.

11.
12.
13.

14.

15.

16.
17.

18.

19.

justice demands a distributive principle as stringent as the difference principle (Rawls 1996, p.
6). In comparison with the plurality of principles that Sen wants to allowsee Section 2they
are better construed as different interpretations of the same conception, and Rawls's increasing
modesty regarding justice as fairness is better interpreted as modesty in terms of scope. In
Political Liberalism, he makes clear that the conception is supposed to apply only to a very
specific kind of society, namely Western liberal democracies characterized by pluralism about
conceptions of the good. For the advantages of such a method of range-restriction over Sens
justice pluralism, see Section 3 and the concluding remarks of this paper.
Hannah Arendt argues that both aesthetics and political philosophy do not admit of general
principles, but require first and foremost the virtue of judgment in particular cases (Arendt,
1992). The extent to which there may be an unexpected overlap between her and Sens position
would be an interesting topic for further investigation.
For Rawls' own attempt in non-ideal theory of social justice, see his discussion of civil
disobedience in Rawls, 1999a, Chapter 6. For his discussion of non-ideal theory of international
justice, see Rawls, 1999b, Part III.
For a sophisticated argument regarding the policies of affirmative action that are required and
permitted by the principle of fair equality of opportunity, here and now, see Taylor, 2009.
However, not all political philosophers believe that political philosophy must have a practical
point, and be action-guiding in our real world. Jerry Cohen argues that the question for political
philosophy is not what we should do but what we should think, even when what we should
think makes no practical difference (Cohen, 2008, p. 268). Cohen and Sen attack Rawls from
altogether opposite quarters.
For Sens seminal development of the concept of capabilities, see Sen, 1979, where it makes its
first appearance, and Sen, 1999.
For further discussion on this point, see Swift and White, 2008, pp. 51ff.
Recently, adherence to libertarian principles arguably played a major role in the resistance of a
sizeable share of the US population to President Obamas healthcare plan; these people just did
not share the belief that medical exclusion is a social feature [.] that need[s] remedying (p. 96).
To be sure, TI as defined by Sen focuses on them in the particular way of seeking to secure
agreement in the form of a social contract, which may make it vulnerable to other objections,
such as that it unduly excludes outsiders, see Section 1. But these objections do not touch the
point made above.
For two examples of such attempted reductiones of libertarianism, see Rawls, 1996, Lecture VII,
which aims at demonstrating that the application of libertarian principles over time would not
preserve the individual freedom on whose appeal the case for them rests; and Okin, 1988, Chapter
4, which argues that a consistent application of the libertarian principle of self-ownership would
imply that children are the property of their mothers, as products of their labour.
For Sens own, inclusive variant of consequentialism, which aims at taking both states of affairs
and the processes bringing them about into account, see Chapter 10.
However, specialization should not, just by itself, keep political philosophers from seeking a
broader impact through active participation in public debates; here, Sen has been among the
laudable exceptions during the last decades.
Sens emphasis on the importance of public reasoning and discussion likens his model to
theories of deliberative democracy, which have abounded during the last three decades. The
extent to which it is able to add to these would be an interesting subject for further inquiry. As it
stands, it is insufficiently worked out: democratic legitimacy is not only a matter of agreeing on
the content of specific proposals, but of the political procedure that settles how these are put on
the agenda and discussed, and of how power and the opportunity to participate in such political
processes are distributed.
Many contributions on practice-dependence have been overly state-focused, against which Sen
rightly counsels, p. 25. For an exploration of the applicability of the practice-dependence approach

210 Indian Journal of Human Development

to matters of global justice, see Ronzoni, 2009. For an application to the specific case of the WTO,
see Brandi, 2011.
20. See especially Pogge, 2008, Chapter 8 on a global resource dividend, and Chapter 9 on a
global health fund.

REFERENCES
Arendt, Hannah (1992). Lectures on Kants Political Philosophy, Edited by Ronald Beiner, University of
Chicago, Chicago.
Brandi, Clara (2011). The World Trade Organization as a Subject of Socioeconomic Justice, in
Ayelet Banai, Miriam Ronzoni, and Christian Schemmel (eds) Social Justice, Global Dynamics:
Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, Routledge, London, pp. 186-99.
Cohen, G.A. (2008). Rescuing Justice and Equality, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA).
Farrelly, Colin (2007). Justice in Ideal Theory: A Refutation, Political Studies, Vol. 55, No. 4 (2007),
pp. 844-64.
Geuss, Raymond (2008). Philosophy and Real Politics, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
James, Aaron (2005). Constructing Justice for Existing Practices: Rawls and the Status Quo,
Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 281-316.
Mills, Charles (2005). Ideal Theory as Ideology, Hypatia, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 165-84.
Nozick, Robert (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Basic Books, New York.
Okin, Susan Moller (1988). Justice, Gender, and the Family, Basic Books, New York.
Pogge, Thomas (2008). World Poverty and Human Rights, Second edition, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Rawls, John (1996). Political Liberalism, Columbia University Press, New York.
(1999a). A Theory of Justice, (revised edition), Oxford University Press, Oxford.
(1999b). The Law of Peoples, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA).
(2001). Justice as FairnessA Restatement, Edited by Erin Kelly, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge (MA).
(2007). Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, Edited by Samuel Freeman, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge (MA).
Ronzoni, Miriam (2009). The Global Order: A Case of Background Injustice? A Practice-Dependent
Account, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 229-56.
Sangiovanni, Andrea (2008). Justice and the Priority of Politics to Morality, Journal of Political
Philosophy, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 137-64.
Sen, Amartya (1979). Equality of What?, The Tanner Lecture on Human Values, Available at: http://
www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/documents/sen80.pdf, Accessed on 9 April 2011.
Sen, Amartya (1999). Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
(2009). The Idea of Justice, Penguin, London.
Simmons, A. John (2010). Ideal and Non-ideal Theory, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 38, No. 1,
pp. 5-36.
Swift, Adam and Ingrid Robeyns (eds) (2008). Social Justice: Ideal Theory, Non-ideal Circumstances,
special issue of Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 34, No. 3.
Swift, Adam and Stuart White (2008). Political Theory, Social Science, and Real Politics, in David
Leopold and Marc Stears (eds), Political TheoryMethods and Approaches, Oxford University
Press, Oxford, pp. 49-69.
Taylor, Robert S. (2009). Rawlsian Affirmative Action, Ethics, Vol. 119, No. 3, pp. 476-506.
Valentini, Laura (2009). On the Apparent Paradox of Ideal Theory, Journal of Political Philosophy,
Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 332-55.

INDIAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Volume 5

Number 1

INDIAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

welcomes original inter-disciplinary contributions from a

human development perspective on developing countries

>

promotes fresh debates on concepts and measurement

of human development

>

explores the inter-connections between policy

interventions and impacts on the lives of people

>

includes a comparative analysis of development policies

that enhance people's freedoms

>

offers human development insights into policy analysis

and evaluation

The Journal includes scholarly essays and short comments, lectures

and orations, reflections and perspectives, book reviews,
information on events and statistics relating to human
development. Expressions of all shades and opinions are welcome.

Subscription Rates

Volume 5
Number 1

I SSN 0 9 7 3 - 7 0 3 0

9 770973 703000

January-June 2011

Institute for Human Development

NIDM Building, IIPA Campus, IP Estate
New Delhi-110 002
Phones: +91-11-2335 8166/ 2332 1610
Fax: +91-11-2376 5410
Email: ijhd@ihdindia.org
Website: www.ihdindia.org

January-June 2011

January-June 2011

The Indian Journal of Human Development:

>

Volume 5 Number 1

Institute for
Human
Development

INDIAN JOURNAL OF
H U M A N
DEVELOPMENT

Madhusudan Ghosh Regional Disparities in Education,

Health and Human Development in India
Jandhyala B.G. Tilak What Matters for
Outcomes in Elementary Education in India?
Pravat Kumar Kuri and Arindam Laha Financial Inclusion
and Human Development in India: An Inter-State Analysis
Symposium on
THE IDEA OF JUSTICE
Keith Dowding What Is the Idea of Justice?

INDIAN

Roberto Alejandro Towards a Hermeneutics of Justice:

Reflections on Amartya Sen's Philosophy
Sebastiano Maffettone Sen's Idea of
Justice versus Rawls' Theory of Justice
James P. Sterba What Sen Should Have Said to Rawls

JOURNAL

Charles W. Mills Re-Theorizing Justice: Some Comments

on Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice
Valerian Rodrigues Justice as the Lens: Interrogating
Rawls through Sen and Ambedkar

Aakash Singh Rathore The Romance of Global Justice?

Sen's Deparochialization and the Quandary of Dalit Marxism

OF

HUMAN

Philip Pettit A Question for Sen

about Democracy and Justice
Christian Schemmel Sen, Rawlsand Sisyphus
Evan Riley Against Sen Against Rawls on Justice
O.A. Oyeshile Sen's Realization-Focused
Notion of Justice and the Burden of
Democratic Governance in African Societies
PERSPECTIVE
Udaya S. Mishra On Adjusting the Survivorship
Dimension in the Human Development Index
RESPONSE
M.H. Suryanarayana New Estimates of Poverty in India: A
Critique of the 'Tendulkar Committee Report'A Response

DEVELOPMENT

BOOK REVIEWS